Budget increases at the VA have come as the total number of veterans is decreasing due primarily to the deaths of aging World War II participants.
According to figures from the Office of Management and Budget, funding for medical care, which composes 40 percent of the VA's annual budget, increased 193 percent from 2001 to 2013.
During the same period, the overall veterans' population declined by 4.3 million,
Investor's Business Daily reported.
Tal Coley, senior policy analyst with
Concerned Veterans of America, agrees that the current problems at VA hospitals are not due to budgetary skimping.
"The department has experienced budgetary increases since 2006, yet it continues to fail to meet its own goals. And as the VA's performance has failed to meet basic standards, nobody has been held accountable — making it nearly impossible to change VA's calcified culture," Coley said in a statement.
According to the OMB, the VA budget increased in real terms from $45 billion in fiscal 2001 to $150.7 billion in fiscal 2014. Only the Department of Defense experienced a larger increase. And from 2008 to 2012, per-patient spending at the VA climbed 27 percent.
Nevertheless, Democrats continue to cite inadequate funding as the source of the ongoing VA scandal.